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this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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It should take seven hours.
Fucking hell America.
You wouldn't need all the fancy amenities if it actually ran at an acceptable speed.
So, a train service between Chicago and Miami via Washington DC (as Amtrak's Floridian will take) is just about 1700 miles (about 2700 km). It would take a train traveling at about 235 mph (378 kph) to meet that seven hour target with zero stops along the way. There's maybe five train services in the world that even get close to that operational speed and they all travel between cities that are like 250 miles (about 400 km) apart.
Do we need high speed rail in the USA? Yes, absolutely. Is a high speed rail route between Miami and Chicago viable? No, not really. (Edit: my phone keeps auto correcting "it" and "is" to "it's")
Ah, I was using a distance measure from Chicago to Miami by road and figuring it'd be approximately correct. I forgot to account for the detour to DC. If that's the distance than a bit over nine hours would be more accurate.
I'm using 300 kmph as a speed average just to give a bit of error for weird slow downs - in France the average top traveling speed for trains is 320 kmph
Also, not for nothing, long distance sleeper trains are actually making a comeback in Europe and Asia... so maybe we're actually ahead of the curve on this one.
I was looking into visiting a friend in Cleveland from Philadelphia. Basically, it's a straight shot West with hardly anything between. 6 hour drive, but I prefer the train when possible. 16 hours of travel time by train. Our system is so screwed.
I know that the lines are owned by freight companies, so they have the right of way. It's just so frustrating to know that the infrastructure was there 100 years ago, but today, it is crippled by private interests and greed.
It's not just right-of-way but also that they stop in every little town along the way so it takes forever. I've done it from Oregon to ND and it took a couple of days of this.
Yes! That is so annoying. Then again, I do think it's better that more people from the small towns have the opportunity for public transportation, not just city to city. In Europe they manage to serve lots of locations and keep travel times short. It's possible, just an expensive commitment.
Amtrak actually legally has right of way over freight, it's just that the freight companies break the law, and no one does anything about it. https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/HostRailroadReports/mythbusters-enforcing-amtraks-legal-right-to-preference.pdf
TIL. Wow, that is even more aggravating.
Right. Two days there and two days back, so four days of your vacation lost to travel. I imagine the market they're trying to target with these cheap fairs can't exactly take an extra week off of work to waste on travel time. Meanwhile you can hop on a plane and be there the same day usually for not too much more if you keep an eye out for good deals.
Seven hours is still way worse than flying though.
Honestly? Not really.
A thirty minute flight takes about two and a half hours. Kayak says that's a three hour twenty minute flight so you end up shaving off an hour twenty flying vs. high speed rail... and that's ignoring costs like the annoyance of having your person scanned and tracked in an airport and having arbitrary limits and costs associated with your luggage. Also, losing luggage sucks balls - and you're never going to lose luggage on a train unless you're robbed. Add on that in a train the seats are designed for comfort along with (thank the fucking lord) the bathrooms.
I'll take high speed rail over a US flight any day of the week.
It's funny because in Europe the math is actually more in favor of flights because security theater is minimal and budget airlines are extremely competitive... still airlines cannot compete on comfort.